@node Invoking
@chapter Invoking
The @command{sat} package has four commands,
excluding the daemon:
@example
sat TIME COMMAND...
satq
satr [JOB-ID]...
satrm JOB-ID...
@end example
@noindent
None of these have any options, and @command{satq}
does not take any arguments at all. There are two
recognised environment variables:
@table @env
@item XDG_RUNTIME_DIR
This environment variable names the directory in
which interprocess communication related files are
stored. If unset or empty, @file{/run} is used.
@item SAT_HOOK_PATH
The pathname of the hook script to use. Does not
have to already exist. If not defined,
@file{$XDG_CONFIG_HOME/sat/hook}
(if @env{XDG_CONFIG_HOME} is defined),
@file{$HOME/.config/sat/hook} (if @env{HOME} is
defined), @file{~/.config/sat/hook} (if the user has
a home and is not root), or @file{/etc/sat/hook}
(otherwise) is used.
@end table
The daemon, which is user-private, also recognises
these environment variables, and is in fact the only
one that actually looks at @env{SAT_HOOK_PATH}. Its
command line synopsis is
@example
satd [-f]
@end example
@noindent
where @option{-f} is used to tell it to run in the
foreground rather than to daemonise itself and create
a PID file. You would normally not run @command{satd}
manually, it is started automatically by the other
commands and exits automatically when it has nothing
more to do. If you want to update it to never version
whilst it is running, kill it with @command{SIGHUP}.
It may have children with the same name, make sure you
kill the parent.
@command{sat} runs the specified command (@code{COMMAND...})
at a specified time (@code{TIME}). The job will run with
the same environment as @command{sat} has when it queues
the job.
@command{satq} lists all queued jobs to standard output.
@command{satr} runs the selected jobs (unless they have
already been started or removed.) If no job is selected, all queued
jobs are run.
@command{satrm} removes selected jobs (unless they have
already been started or removed) from the queue of jobs.
@code{JOB-ID} is a unique non-negative integer (serial number),
which can be retrieved by running @command{satq}.
@code{TIME} is the time the job shall be scheduled to run.
Is can be in either of the formats
@table @code
@item HH:MM
The job shall run the next time the clock is @code{HH:MM}
is @sc{UTC}, which is a 24-hour clock time, where @code{HH}
is the hour and may be any non-negative integer, even higher
than 24; and @code{MM} is the minute in the hour, which must
be an integer in [0, 59].
@item HH:MM:SS
The job shall run the next time the clock is @code{HH:MM:SS}
in @code{UTC}, which is a 24-hour clock time, where @code{HH}
is the hour and may be any non-negative integer, even higher
than 24; @code{MM} is the minute in the hour, which must
be an integer in [0, 59]; and @code{SS} is the second
in the minute, which may be any non-negative value, it
may a floatig-point value which will be parsed up to
nanosecond resultion.
@item S
The job shall run the next time@footnote{Have you heard
of leap seconds and how we handle time in @sc{POSIX} time.}
the POSIX time is @code{S}. That is, @code{S} seconds
after 1970-01-01 00:00:00 UTC (the Epoch), not counting
leap seconds. This may be a floating-point value which will
be parsed up to nanosecond resultion. This is been added so
that you may use an external parser.
@item +S
The job shall be executed in @code{S} seconds, this may
be a floating-point value which will be parsed up to
nanosecond resultion. Note that only seconds are
supported, not minutes or hours. Unless you use an
external parsers, code values to know are
@table @asis
@item 60
1 minute.
@item 300
5 minutes.
@item 600
10 minutes.
@item 1800
30 minutes.
@item 3600
1 hour.
@item 18000
5 hours.
@item 53200
12 hours.
@item 86400
24 hours.
@end table
@noindent
You can of course also use @command{expr}, or
@code{$(( ))} in GNU Bash.
@end table
@noindent
Values must be encoded using only digits, at most one
decimal point which is encoded with a period (@code{.}).
If a specified time is in the parsed, but not more than
24 hours ago, 24 hours will be added to it, and a warning
is printed. This is so that you may use an external parser
and not have too worry too much about how it behaves.
To the end of @code{HH:MM} and @code{HH:MM:SS} you may
add @code{Z} or @code{UTC}, with any optional number
of blank spaces between it and the time. Unless this is
done, you will receive a warning telling that the time
is interpreted in UTC. You cannot use local time, or
any other timezone than UTC unless you use an external
parser.
